Ever Dundas: Goblin

We’re adventurers! Ayaiyaiaiai! Shoosh kid shut up fuck off Jesus! And I say my lizard prayers as we seek seek sneak, our lizard who art in heaven hallowed be thy name deliver me from light above to the darkness below and let us partake of your kingdom.

We sneak sneak creep through tunnels for miles and miles, rumblings above, tremors. Listening, swaying, the bombs are plopping and we can’t hear the boom, just plops like rain. Hallowed be thy name, hallowed be thy name, let us partake of your kingdom O lizards, seek seek creep. I could hear Mackenzie protesting, I could hear him say, ‘Don’t forget the Morlocks, Goblin. Don’t forget. They’ll eat you alive, crunch!’ But Mac wasn’t here and anyway I knew there were no Morlocks, the Morlocks are the future and this is the present. And in the present we walked, for hours in the darkness, through tunnels and caves, we rest in caves and we sleep, we drift and we sleep, dreaming the dream of the lizards with glinting eyes made of emeralds.

Edinburgh, 7 July 2011

The past is creeping up and I’m sick, spending days in bed. Ben is looking after me and he says, ‘Why didn’t ye tell me yer not the witch? Why didn’t ye tell me yer the goblin?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘It matters,’ he says. ‘At least now I know what the “G” stands for.’

‘You never asked. You always call me old lady.’

‘Aye, well, it would be good to know if yer best mate is a goblin. I shouldnae have to ask.’

I get up to take Mahler for a walk but Ben won’t let me.

‘Yer sick, old lady. Yer feverish. The doc said ye need some rest.’

‘I don’t remember a doctor.’

‘Ye need to get back to bed. I’m looking after Mahler. Ye dinnae need to worry about a thing.’

Ben looks after me and Ailsa from next door brings me soup. Monsta is always by my side.

‘You’re not real,’ I say to spectre-Monsta. ‘You were buried.’

But Monsta only sways in defiance, wrapping tentacles round my arm.

‘You’re not real,’ I say. ‘You were in the papers. Your remains are in London.’

The phone rings and I hear Ben talking in the hall. He knocks on my door and brings me the phone.

‘There’s a detective for ye.’

‘I told you they’d find me.’

He offers me the phone and I shake my head.

‘He wants to talk to ye about the things they found.’

I fold my arms and turn away.

‘She cannae talk jus now, Detective. She isnae well.’

He goes silent, listening. I watch him.

‘Just hang up,’ I say.

I can hear the murmur of the detective’s voice. Ben’s brow is furrowed.

‘I think ye should talk to ’im,’ he says to me, still listening to the detective.

‘Give me that! What did he say to you? What did he say? Let me speak to him.’

Ben hands me the phone.

‘Detective,’ I say. ‘What did you say to him?’

‘We need you in London,’ he says. ‘We need you down here.’

‘You need me?’

‘We need to discuss what we found.’

‘I won’t come, Detective. I can’t go back there.’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

‘I have a choice.’

‘We can issue a court order.’

‘There’s no need. I won’t come. I won’t say a word. There’s no need. Leave the past in the past.’

I put down the handset and give the phone back to Ben.

‘I knew they’d find me. I won’t take any more calls,’ I say. ‘Bring me that album,’ I say, pointing at the shelf. ‘Bring it to me.’

He hands me the album and I open it, looking at the photos.

‘I was in the circus,’ I say. ‘Mad and James, they were my new mum and dad and we all worked in the circus. We were happy.’

‘I think ye should go see the Detective,’ says Ben. ‘When yer better.’

‘I was a clown. Did I tell you that?’

‘I can believe it,’ he says.

‘And I looked after the animals.’

‘Think on it,’ he says, standing up to leave. ‘Ye can think on it.’

‘I loved looking after the animals.’

I drop off to sleep and wake up with the album clasped to my chest. Amelia is standing over me, offering me soup, and she says, ‘I was executed in 1896.’

No, not you, it’s not you who brings me soup. It’s Ailsa. And you, dear Ailsa, you weren’t executed at all.

I can control this. There is no sinking or falling.

‘Ailsa, I don’t need soup. I need a drink.’

‘You need nourishment.’

Drink gives me nourishment.

Ailsa leaves, and clink clink clink go the treasures under my bed. I pour myself a glass and I’m in control. Until Ben comes and takes them all away.

‘It’s cold turkey for ye, old lady. Eat yer soup.’

And I eat my soup.

‘Why didn’t ye tell me yer not the witch? That yer the goblin? I thought we were friends.’

‘It’s nobody’s business,’ I say, ‘whether I’m a witch or a goblin.’

I come out of my fever and I know that I need to be in control. The past will not sweep over me. I walk into it, with Monsta and Devil and a fortune in my pockets, a severed hand at my belly. A camera in my hand.

Goblin, I can tell you now, was never haunted by the past. She held the past in the palm of her hand. She travelled, she bathed in circus lights, she wove stories around history, brought to life the ghosts of Venice, treading the streets with the tourists. Goblin, I can tell you, was a storyteller. Goblin controlled time.

I’m a storyteller. I control the past. I greet it as it comes in fragments, in ink, in the ether. I shall greet it and we shall dance in the darkness, scuttling and climbing and speeding through tunnels with the lizards down below.

Everyone’s gone, and it’s me and Monsta, back in London. I’m too far ahead, and mixed up, back and forward. The memories just come and I let them. I must bring order, a little order, move away from the bombs and back to glorious thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven.

They merge. Those years before the war. The long summers, the running wild, playing cowboys and Indians, Martians and humans. I don’t remember when we first found the worksite, or when David first told me his dreams of the sea, or when I became friends with the Crazy Pigeon Woman of Amen Court. They merge, and I jump forward and back. I must bring order.

‘What ye doing, old lady?’

‘I’m writing,’ I say. ‘I’m in control.’

This is the past, this is my story of the war, of London; the realm above, the realm in-between, the realm down below.

London, 1937 – 1938

Disappearing into another world, ushered in by the guardian in the long white robes and still I felt I was sneak sneak sneaking. I followed Mac’s family, dipping my fingers in the water, touching my fingers to my body. I couldn’t see clearly what they were doing, so I copied clumsily, my fingers bouncing off my chest to a random rhythm of my own. Mackenzie smiled at me, shaking his head, so I stopped, feeling like an idiot. I watched as people knelt in the aisle, stood, and filed into the pews. I followed close behind Mac and did the same, my eyes flicking round the church, but no one was looking, no one noticed if I did anything wrong. I stumbled after Mac, sitting with him and his family.

The service was confusing and I was faint from the smoking incense and the mesmeric chanting – the Lord be with you and with you Holy Holy Holy forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us the body of Christ the blood of Christ in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost go in peace thanks be to God Amen. I swayed and hummed and tumbled out into the world, Mackenzie by my side.

‘Jesus, that was boring, eh Goblin? Let’s go kill Martians.’